after the birth and the afterbirth, the midwife lifts the placenta to show how from womb we are all elemental, beloved, succored from a veiny tree. the assigned boy child was easy. querido querida querides, we took the organ, of our lineage, a treasured gift, of our waters and roots, iced and carried in a bloody plastic bag, a budding, and contributed its last work to fig. after the assigned girlchild, wherever you go from around to within, we had to steal what they wanted to study. mother as creature made possible pathology. we brought a cooler and guarded it. peaches rise now in a garden that feeds other mouths. breath ancestor los ancestros que todavía respiran están respirando sus canciones trees rose and the roots talked to one another. all creatures listened and knew one language. they moved like water, we see you, adapting to one another. and in the water, we be you, that fed the water and trees and all living things, you be we, there was wisdom and memory passed on. areyto to atabey remembered in stone on a metal tray, strength current wherever there is water and earth, a deliverer holds up a blood tree, roots the bridge between death and life and dream, fleshy eden, listen to the voices still whispering there before the clot. springtime in mewl and eyelash flutter. our and your own yes.
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is a mother, daughter, sister, madrina, comadre, partner, poet, writer, and teacher educator. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education. She seeks out communities of care and craft and is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo. She is the author of Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She publishes across forms in visual art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and scholarly work. She has received fellowships and residencies with the Obsidian Foundation, Community of Writers, Montana Artists Refuge, Macdowell, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale, among others. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. She educates our present and future agitators/educators as a full professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California, only the third Black person (all Black women) and the first Afro-Latina to achieve that rank there. She also teaches as poetry faculty at Stonecoast MFA. She is additionally a digital archivist, emerging visual artist, writing coach, and curriculum developer.
The author grants permission.
Raina J. León’s latest book is black god mother this body. Visit with her and her work at the Miami Book Fair 2022 on 11/20 at 4:30 pm in Room 6100. Cover art by: Amy Law.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s preview coverage of Miami Book Fair (MBF) 2021! The poets whose work you’ll be reading every weekday from October 25 through November 12 are just a few of the many authors from around the world participating in this year’s MBF, the nation’s largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages. They all look forward to sharing their work, thoughts, and ideas both in person and online. Between November 14 and November 21, new poet conversations and readings will be launched and available for free on miamibookfaironline.com (in addition to other content). For more information, visit the website and follow MBF on Instagram and Twitter at @miamibookfair and use the hashtag #miamibookfair2021.